Category Archives: Bad and weird movies

THE CLONES (1973): MOVIE REVIEW

ClonesTHE CLONES (1973) – This neglected sci-fi item from the 70s was directed by Lamar Card & Paul Hunt, based on Hunt’s story. The Clones falls into that category of films that I always refer to as “X-Movies” because of the way they put one in mind of the paranoid and conspiratorial air of the best X-Files episodes.

Michael Greene, who played Secret Service Agent Jimmy Hart in To Live and Die in L.A, stars as Dr Gerald Appleby. Gerald is a scientist who has been cloned and finds himself vying with his clone for ownership of his life, career and girlfriend when the duplicate begins impersonating him.

clones 2Gregory Sierra, best known to trivia buffs as “And Gregory Sierra” for the number of times he was credited like that in various television shows and movies, plays Nemo, a government agent tasked to keep the clone project a secret and bring in the escapee.

Helping him out is fellow agent Sawyer, portrayed by Otis Young (Blood Beach). Sawyer suffers a crisis of conscience during this coverup assignment.  Continue reading

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THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN (1977): BRUCE LEE EXPLOITATION

Dragon Lives Again

The Dragon Lives Again

THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN (1977) – CategoryBrucesploitation with an enjoyably absurd twist   

Even for the bizarre sub-genre of Brucesploitation films this movie is out there! The film starts with the recently – deceased Bruce Lee arriving in the afterlife, where the concubines of the King of the Dead gather around to gawk at the bulge in the pants of the late martial arts superstar. (Just in case you thought NO opening could be more tasteless than the one in The Clones Of Bruce Lee ) In a bit of alleged comic relief the bulge turns out to be caused by a weapon, not Lee’s organ. (Corpse schlong jokes! Who doesn’t love them?)

As head-shaking as that bit is at least it’s coherent, unlike virtually everything else that happens from this point on in the movie. And the time-honored tradition of Brucesploitation films having  leading men who don’t even look like Bruce Lee is well-represented in this flick, but at least here they try to explain it away by talking about how a person’s face and body change after death.  Which, of course, makes no sense since this is supposed to be Lee’s soul, not his body. 

Anyway, Bruce somehow persuades the King Of The Dead to grant him a chance to return to the world of the living, and is told he can return if he outfights all the other inhabitants of this odd netherworld. 

You see, this isn’t just any bland version of the afterlife our hero finds himself in. It’s kind of a Valhalla of cult movie characters and Bruce spends the rest of the movie fighting all of them in various combinations. Continue reading

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FRIDAY THE 13th: THE ORPHAN (1977)

Friday the 13th The Orphan biggerFRIDAY THE 13th: THE ORPHAN (1977) – H.H. Munro must have turned over in his grave at this adaptation of one of his short stories. This quasi-horror film was re-released in 1979 as just The Orphan and despite the original title it has no connection to the Friday the 13th series of slasher flicks. At least, no REAL connection. I’m surprised some unscrupulous distributor never tried sneaking this into theaters in the 1980s as a “prequel” to the slasher movies by presenting the insane young boy in the movie as the grandfather of Jason Voorhees.

Even so the title makes it hard not to think of our wealthy young protagonist “David” (Mark Owens) as an ancestor of the hockey- masked slice and dice man from Crystal Lake. In the 1920s David’s mother accidentally shoots his African Big Game Hunter father Kevin to death during an argument about his frequent overseas trips. David not only witnesses this but sees his mother put the gun in her mouth and kill herself immediately afterward.

Next David gets VERY disturbed when a presumed family member (an uncredited Christopher Lloyd in a “blink-and-you’ll- miss- him” appearance) forces him to kiss his dead father as he lies in his coffin.

The young man’s Aunt Martha arrives to take care of him (and yes, obscure movie buffs, she sometimes does dreadful things). Turns out Martha was dating David’s father before he callously dumped her to marry her sister. Martha takes her resentment of the father out on David and even chews him out about a cough he inherited from dear dead Dad. I’m sure you can tell where all this is headed. Continue reading

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AD NAUSEUM: NEWSPRINT NIGHTMARES FROM THE 1980s

Ad NauseumAuthor Michael Gingold has collected 450 movie ads for horror films of the 1980s.

The book – Ad Nauseum: Newsprint Nightmares from the 1980s – features more than just the ads of course. Gingold accompanies the ads with anecdotes about what it was like as a filmgoer in the 80s when there was no internet and newspaper ads were one of the major sources for upcoming horror flicks.

The book is available for pre-order Continue reading

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FATHER’S DAY (2011)

Father's DayFATHER’S DAY (2011) – Brace yourself for a gory time in this enjoyably outrageous cult classic.

Ahab, the eye-patch sporting hero of the Astron 6 horror film Father’s Day is in my opinion the one true successor to Bruce Campbell’s Ash Williams. And considering how unfair the ending of this movie is for Ahab and his two sidekicks a case could even be made for them replacing Ash as the most royally screwed character in the history of gore-soaked horror comedies.     

It’s difficult to review this dark, grotesque gem without resorting to a series of catch phrases like “Goes where Dead Alive and similar movies failed to go” or “What Grindhouse hath wrought” or even “Twink and Walnut: They’re NOT Muppets!” Let me start with a more practical line: Do not watch this movie if you can not handle the most offensive violence, concepts, gore and deranged sexuality imaginable.  Continue reading

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SCREAM FACTORY: BRAIN DEAD (1990)

Brain Dead 1990Scream Factory has announced that on September 11th it will be releasing its edition of the 1990 cult movie Brain Dead, with Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton. 

It’s an enjoyable little head-trip of a movie that tries to keep you guessing about what’s really going on. Extras for the release will be announced at a later date.

I’m not sure if even I would want to own this movie but it’s at least nice for a one-time viewing. Once you know what’s really going on subsequent viewings lack any real oomph.  

 

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“LOVE IS A FINE THING” FROM THE MOVIE “THE MAN FROM S.E.X.”

Mascot new lookFor Balladeer’s Blog’s review of the horrible yet hilarious spy movie The Man From S.E.X. click HERE  

For this edition of Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead here’s the song Love Is A Fine Thing from that film – which was also released under the title Licensed to Love and Kill. Doreen Chanter sings it.

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SUPERNATURAL (1933): TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

Supernatural 1933Before MST3K there was … The Texas 27 Film Vault!

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of this neglected cult show from the mid-1980s.

EPISODE ORIGINALLY BROADCAST: Saturday April 19th, 1986 from 10:30pm to 1:00am.

EXTRAS: This episode featured footage of our Film Vault Technicians First Class Randy and Richard’s promotional appearance at Six Flags Mall in nearby Arlington, TX. Supernatural 2

HOST SEGMENTS: One particular Host Segment featured one of the show’s behind-the- scenes people portraying Commando Cody complete with helmet and rocket pack. He was portraying the character because the Commando Cody serial Radar Men from the Moon was the current serial being shown before the movie each week on The Texas 27 Film Vault.

Since Randy Clower still outranked his co-host Richard Malmos (at least until a few episodes later) in the fictional Film Vault Corps (“The few, the proud, the sarcastic”) their relationship often featured the type of abusive “Host and Second Banana” dynamic like that between Dr Morgus and his lab assistant Chopsley or Zacherle and his wife My Dear or Dr Forester and TV’s Frank.  Radar Men from the Moon

At any rate this Host Segment featured “Commando Cody” befriending Randy and setting out with him for a night of partying on the town while the two leave Richard behind to do all the grub work in their barracks.

SERIAL: As noted above Radar Men from the Moon was the current serial being shown. This episode featured Chapter Ten titled Mass Execution.

THE MOVIE: Continue reading

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CORPSE EATERS (1974)

http://goregirl.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/corpse-eaters00.jpgCORPSE EATERS (1974) – No, not The Brain Eaters and not The Worm Eaters, both of which are real movies, but Corpse Eaters without any “the” in front. This 57 minute wonder actually manages to overstay its welcome, believe it or not, which is just as well because the similar low-budget film Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things did everything better than this film does. 

The people behind Corpse Eaters know JUST what horror fans want to see … water-skiing and plenty of it! This baby takes the concept of padding to the next level with interminable footage of two couples having a great time boating and otherwise whooping it up at lakeside. I’m not old enough to have ever sat through a suburban family’s hellishly boring home-movies but thanks to this film I can experience it as if I was alive back then! Sweeeeet!

The aforementioned lakeside footage comes after the audience is treated to several loooong minutes of a mortician and his assistant talking about what a creepy job they have. Then it’s on to our “stars” if that isn’t too strong a word for them. The frolicing couples note that it’s Friday the 13th and decide to spend the night in a graveyard just for the heck of it. Continue reading

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HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP (1980): BAD MOVIE

HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP (1980) – Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9-sized cult following 

Okay, this movie is better known than many of the other joyously bad films I review, but it still hasn’t acquired the reputation or the following it deserves as Midnight Movie or Movie Host material. Vic Morrow IS the heavy and Doug McClure IS another bland and unmemorable hero in this  film, one of the many horror flicks that tried to imitate Alien.

Roger Corman executive- produced and his gang alone would turn out a few other movies that were , shall we say – “reminiscent” – of Alien, namely Forbidden World and Galaxy of Terror (If you ever wanted to see Joannie from Joannie Loves Cha-Chi explode from within this is the movie for you!) Continue reading

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